The Man Who Polled the World, aka DAVID BOWIE POLL RESULTS

thread idea inspired by Steely Dan's "Do It Again" btw, even though it wouldn't win the "most avant-garde solo" prize

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyf0o6YS9t1qfkgyio1_500.jpg

God, I love "Kooks." It's the song that more than any other made me reconsider my long-standing antipathy to Bowie. (Big fan of Changesone in high school, completely uninterested through my 20s and 30s, again a big fan of the dozen songs I voted for.)

'Andy Warhol' is clearly where Metallica stole one of the riffs in 'Master Of Puppets' from.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican)

Yep, and they stole the phrase 'Leper Messiah' from 'Ziggy Stardust'. Obviously Jaymz is a closet Bowie fan.

Holy shit, the vicar in that Young Ones scene is Terry Jones? It's been yonks since I watched the Young Ones I never noticed that before.

my dumbass all-hits ballot, classic rockist 2 the core and (unsurprisingly) non-ILX-canonical in that i gave v short shrift to station to station & the "berlin trilogy":

1) Suffragette City
2) Ashes To Ashes
3) Rebel Rebel (perhaps i overrate due to imagined spiritual kinship w bikini kill's "rebel girl")
4) The Man Who Sold The World
5) Space Oddity (not so much for now, but then)
6) Cat People (long moroder version ftw*)
7) Heroes
8) All The Young Dudes
9) Quicksand
10) Starman (have no idea how this drek got on here, should have been "fame", smdh)
11) Andy Warhol
12) Is There Life On Mars?
13) John, I'm Only Dancing
14) Fashion
15) Diamond Dogs
16) Moonage Daydream
17) Under Pressure
18) Young Americans
19) Let's Dance
20) Modern Love

* there's supposedly a nine minute version of the bowie/moroder "cat people (putting out fire)" on an australian 12-inch. is this a myth? anyone have it/heard it?

I always liked Fill Your Heart anyway, but liked it even more when I heard the various ways that Bowie improved on the original. It's not like he made huge changes, but every one is perfect...

I like every song on Hunky Dory TBH.

3 of my favorites that didn't make it:

Let Me Sleep Beside you
Memory Of A Free Festival
Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed

1.Life On Mars?
2.Time
3.Cat People (Soundtrack)
4.Modern Love
5.Breaking Glass
6.Drive In Saturday
7.Oh! You Pretty Things
8. Warszawa
9.Time Will Crawl
10.Suffragette City
11.Ashes To Ashes
12.Young Americans
13.Panic In Detroit
14. Art Decade
15.Watch That Man
16."Heroes"
17.Ziggy Stardust
18.Fame '90 (was not tied to this particular version)
19.Space Oddity
20.Cracked Actor

nine minute cat people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrXkOeu-ss

eek sorry for the embed

so so worth it though!

o shit! couldn't find it the last time i looked (which was apparently quite some time ago). ^-_-^

just needs this as an intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPP1i2YrrfA

i think his singing got better with aladdin sane. i don't like some of the more nasally vocals on the earlier stuff.

i think life on mars won cuz it's a fucking amazing song

music crit gold ^^

So, I was still coming up with 80 ballots, but only 78 first-place votes. Obviously I'd miscounted the #1s when I transcribed (by hand, don't ask) from my big messy spreadsheet to the nice neat googledoc. So I opened Big Messy in Google and there they were.

Revisions: "Hang on to Yourself" changed from 0 first-place votes to 1, and "Life on Mars" changed from 4 first-place votes to 5. Point totals were correct, no changes. Total number of ballots: a nice even 80.

I love that clash of the Tony Newley cockney scamp voice with the New York arts scene references that makes Hunky Dory so original and fresh.

80's a terrific effort, well done all. It makes the results so much more fun too.

And 41 different songs got first-place votes.

Wow, 80. You win!

Is 80 all-ILM record? Well done, people--and WmC, again, great job....so FUN!!

I think so, but I don't keep up with rap or metal polls.

Mark -- I wasn't competing for anything! ILM wins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Km5OKZlp0

It's not the side-effects of the cocaine
I'm thinking that all you people who voted for Low haven't listened to any other Bowie albums

― an elk hunt (Ówen P.), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 4:32 PM (4 days ago)

You may recall that in 1978, LP cutout bins (at least in Scranton) were full of firmly unwanted copies of Low.

they loved it in wilkes-barre tho

^^^^

maybe so, I don't recall seeing Low cutouts at Joe Nardone's Gallery of Sound!

Low was rating #1 of the Top 100 1970's albums on Pitchfork, btw. None of his other albums ranked in the top 50.

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5932-top-100-albums-of-the-1970s/10/

fwiw while i did not vote in this poll and contributed no more than the occasional joek to its unveiling, i totally appreciate its existence and have indeed listened to trax 1-12 today.

so thanks y'all

It's not the side-effects of the cocaine
I'm thinking that all you people who voted for Low haven't listened to any other Bowie albums
― an elk hunt (Ówen P.), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 4:32 PM (4 days ago)

Nah it's his best album

Well, hey. Let's talk.
When you consider so many other Bowie albums to be an treasure trove, pleeeeease tell me
Why Bowie's #1 album (selon ILM) contains so many one-offs, oddities; essentially a b-sides collection
(excepting "Breaking glass" and "Sound + vision") come at me, it's a shit-haul.

Close your eyes to the backstory and you'll hear at least ten other superior albums by same artist

I'm not that invested in Bowie the songwriter, the lyricist, the personality etc. I just really love how Low sounds, from the bottom of my heart! I don't really care about "backstories" and it's really presumptuous and rather arrogant for you to suggest that that's the reason people love the album (whether they're conscious of it or not).

i mean, i'm not into most of hunky dory at all, but i don't have to come up with some strawman conspiracy theory to validate my dislike. also, i know i'm wrong.

I'll bet there's some relationship between average age of voter and preference for Low. I realize after this poll that I don't particularly have a favorite Bowie album at this point. When I listen to the top 60 playlist on Spotify, I seem to be gravitating towards the Scary Monsters tracks, which is interesting because it's not one of my first choices for "best album."

starman conspiracy

Let's just accept that "favorite album" can change week to week if not day to day.

^^^ yep

I voted Low No. 1.

I resisted Bowie for a long time because of the glitter, glam and clown suits. I grew up listening to Top 40 and Classic Rock radio stations and it was all "Let's Dance" and "Rebel Rebel". Hearing that there was this crazy doop-doop-doop record he recorded with the guy who made Bono a star didn't really entice me as a teen.

Later on in college, I finally put Low on and for the next 30 minutes or so, kept checking the copyright date on the label to reconfirm that this really was made in 1977? It sounded light years (sorry for the space term) ahead of what I was hearing at the time.

While there are some who make the Geir Hongroesque proclamations that the songs are but only snatches of static, one-offs, incomplete compositions or unpolished and that they lack the structure of those other bar-to-bar masterpieces is kinda missing the point of what makes Low so great. It's like the music nerd who pooh-poohed the Beatles at summer camp because "their vocals were flat."

Low was the first time it clicked for me just what kind of antenna Bowie had stuck up into the stars and it helped put in context all the other stuff. There's a reason why it's one of his lesser commercial efforts, but also provided the name of his box set. No, it's not a Rosetta Stone. Just rock and roll like nothing I'd ever heard before.

Well, I really like Pinups. The music is taut, and bright, and zippy. Bowie's vocals are enjoyable and goofy. The song selection is really fun. I love his take on "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?" Although I always thought it was a missed opportunity for perfection, if only he had reversed the lyrics to: "Mommy didn't have no toys/and Daddy didn't need no boys." Wouldn't that be tremendous? I love the slowed tempo of I Can't Explain. There is no better album cover.

Listening to the Nassau Coliseum show for the first time. Holy crap. Utterly relentless.

Nassau is the best thing in his catalog. That band was amazing.

loving this tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI1WQBUdB6c

Love Pinups! The "See Emily play" cover is one of the weirdest things dude has produced.

Re: "Low" strawman. I agree with arrogant, sure, and I'm embarrassed. I'm a die-hard fan, I must admit; that fandom sometimes turns the good sense off.

(Normal board conversation usually keeps me purring but I must confess, there were some weird sensations on this thread, like, my heart-rate elevated when I saw "Secret life of Arabia" placed.)

So yeah if I've made any asshole statements upthread it's just 'cause the love runs deep for this man, just as [boarder] can get passionate about AFX or another about Radiohead or another about Biggy or whatevs and make a "don't vote for 'Big Poppa' you fuxx" post.

As for being called presumptuous, ennh, I dunno. Backstory is a large part of the appreciation of "Low", you can't deny it; the structure, the sounds, the mood. Tony Visconti getting some Eventides. Eno may or may not have written "Warszawa". The aborted Roeg score. The coke, the burnout, West Berlin, etc. I've had a hundred conversations about that album, I've written two papers about it, and all of them talked about Bowie's state of mind and/or the gated snare, but not one of them concerned "Always crashing in the same car". Or "What in the world". It's not so presumptuous.

Lastly, my frustration about "Low" placing first isn't b/c of some Geir-esque thing or because I don't Totally Love "Low" To Pieces, 'cause I do. It is just frustrating-- as a die-hard-- that so many people's #1 Bowie album is the one that contains the least amount of Bowie, being 60% instrumental, i.e. missing the man's voice and lyrics.

It is just frustrating-- as a die-hard-- that so many people's #1 Bowie album is the one that contains the least amount of Bowie, being 60% instrumental, i.e. missing the man's voice and lyrics.

yeah, i understand that. the part of low that has vocals, though, is absolutely amazing, nonstop. if it was extended to both sides - the vocals, that is - it would somehow be even more esteemed than it already is, i think.

Backstory is a large part of the appreciation of "Low", you can't deny it.

At the time I bought Low, around 1989 IIRC, I liked it because it reminded me of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in tone but was gratifyingly asexual. Ziggy Stardust was too much when you were viewing Bowie as a competitor for the affections of girls, but Low was just the ticket.

Lastly, my frustration about "Low" placing first isn't b/c of some Geir-esque thing or because I don't Totally Love "Low" To Pieces, 'cause I do. It is just frustrating-- as a die-hard-- that so many people's #1 Bowie album is the one that contains the least amount of Bowie, being 60% instrumental, i.e. missing the man's voice and lyrics.

I loathe biographical criticism. Also, I can't confuse "Subterraneans" and "Speed of Life" for anyone else's instrumentals; they're big, histrionic, and vulgar, like prime Bowie.

Backstory is a large part of the appreciation of "Low", you can't deny it

shaking my motherfucking head til i get whiplash

I loathe biographical criticism. Also, I can't confuse "Subterraneans" and "Speed of Life" for anyone else's instrumentals; they're big, histrionic, and vulgar, like prime Bowie.

Yeah but I kinda agree with him in the sense that Low has always felt a little bit like a Bowie sketchbook rather than some perfectly formed masterpiece. That's not a qualitative statement on its material -- I love pretty much everything on it. But even if track for track Low is his best record, it still feels a little odd to call it his best album.